Sacha Guitry came of age in the glittering and frivolous demi-monde of Parisian theatre. An actor and the author of some 120 plays, he wrote and starred in many early films but did not direct his first until 1935's Bonne Chance. It is to Guitry's quick wit and mellifluous voice that his success is often credited; he famously employed both in a seventeen-minute monologue in Faisons un rêve (1936). His filmmaking, much of it an idiosyncratic blend of historical narrative and musical extravaganza, was once disparaged by critics but is now considered an innovative precursor to French New Wave cinema.